What does it mean to write? Writing is a very simple task one can do with only a pen and paper. And yet, the possibilities are endless. This popular series from last year comes back with a new lineup of interviewees. To everyone who is involved in writing on a daily basis, what does it mean to write?

What does it mean to write?

Yasuhiro Suzuki【3】
SEASON2 vol.7
Yasuhiro Suzuki

A giant transparent human figure floating in the air. A zipper-shaped ship whose wake creates the illusion of the water unzipping behind it. Yasuhiro Suzuki is an artist whose projects focus on discovery and beauty, taking an everyday sight and creating a whole new appeal, and his works begin as simple illustrations. These hand-drawn charts and explanations often accompany his exhibitions. What does it mean for someone like Suzuki to write?

ProfileYasuhiro Suzuki

Born in Shizuoka in 1979, Suzuki graduated from the Department of Design at Tokyo Zokei University. He has created a number of works that offer a new and unique perspective of daily life, including Blinking Leaves, Aerial Being, and Ship of the Zipper. He works at the Musashino Art University Department of Scenography, Space and Fashion Design as an associate professor, and at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo. His art collections, including Blinks and Flutters and Neighborhood Globe, are published by Seigensha, and his picture books, including My Nyanta and Apple and Kendama, have been published by Bronze Shinsha.

Homepage
Twitter: @mabataku

Table of Contents

The Process of Pasting

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When did you start using your notebooks this way?
Suzuki
After I graduated college. When I was a student I would write everything on its own sticky note. It took a while to page through these thick stacks of notes, so that’s when I started a scrapbook. Lining things up side-by-side gave me a new way of looking at everything.
 
The important thing was how long it took to paste everything in. I glued them all in one by one, so I’m sure you can imagine how tedious that was.
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Yes.
Suzuki
But pasting them all in one at a time so that they lined up nicely provided me with a sense of accomplishment. That gave me an emotional attachment that made it exciting to look back through everything. That’s when I realized how important it was to go back and read through what I’d written before.
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That’s your origin story.
Suzuki
What I didn’t like, though, was how pasting them in gave them a permanent place in the book. So I’d fold over the pages.
 
That gives me a whole new set of connections, see? It felt really important for me to be able to move my notes around like this.

Sure, you can move notes around if you’re handling them digitally, and you can make new pairings that way. But there’s no point at which you glue anything down. The time spent doing that part feels important to me.
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It seems like your goal would be to make a scrapbook, but you’re saying what’s important is the time you spent gluing things down in the process.
Suzuki
Right. Once I moved on to exhibiting my work, I found these notebooks and stopped scrapbooking. I still use the experience I gained from working that way, though. Notebooks and scrapbooks aren’t just tools, but a means of connecting your abilities with the feelings you have.
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These scrapbooks and notebooks are such an asset.
Suzuki
I’ve made so many sketches over the years that these notebooks are overflowing with ideas. I don’t actually want anyone to see them.
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And yet you shared them with us...!
Suzuki
Occasionally I’ll talk with my assistant about one of my sketches, and they’ll ask what something is. Sometimes I’ll give an off-the-cuff answer that ends up being interesting to me. It’s important for me to be able to feel like I wouldn’t want anyone poking through my notebooks without asking—that way, when I actually show part of one to somebody, it allows something I wasn’t aware of to emerge from its hiding place deep within me.
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So you showing off something you planned on keeping yourself creates something new, too.
Suzuki
Yeah. Using this notebook the way I do—like a techo—and taking notes the way I do has an immeasurable influence on me. If I can get excited just at the sight of this notebook, then I’ll never feel stuck or out of ideas. As long as I have this, I have somewhere I can go to page through and pull out something new, and that’s really reassuring.

Of course, sometimes I page through the notebooks and I still can’t come up with anything.
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Yeah. (Laughs)
Suzuki
But if I didn’t have these, I’d need to create my ideas from scratch every time. And that’s not easy to do. I’ve only been able to do the work I’ve done because I have access to the time and the space this notebook provides me. And this gray notebook has been really great. It always accepts me. The gray hue seems to tell me I don’t have to be perfect.
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If it were black, maybe it would have a stronger tone to it.
Suzuki
Yeah. Oh, and I remember when I first started using these notebooks, I’d be paranoid about losing one somewhere.
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Yeah.
Suzuki
But then someone told me, “Don’t worry. If anyone finds it, they won’t have any idea what’s written inside it anyway.” That really shocked me. (Laughs) I have so many secrets written in it, though! They’re just so incredibly precious to me.

(End)

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photos:eric